


Somebody Catch My Breath

by DefaltManifesto



Series: The Drabble Series [13]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Chuck Lives, Cuddling & Snuggling, Friendship, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 03:44:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5569726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaltManifesto/pseuds/DefaltManifesto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck has a hard time adjusting to life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somebody Catch My Breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sonorousandloud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonorousandloud/gifts).



> Another gift fic! Comments are loved. Title from Goner by twenty one pilots

[The tumblr](http://schizzar.tumblr.com)

 

Sparring helps the nightmares. There's a lot of things to have nightmares about in Chuck's life, the pile of bad shit outweighing, the pile of good by a landslide. So when he wakes up, a scream at the back of his throat, Raleigh hauls him out of bed and they spar in the wide-open basement in the house they share with Mako. Sometimes Mako follows after them and she'll sit and watch. She always know when to pull them apart, when the sparring Chuck doesn't know how to talk about the nightmares. Growing up on a military base, devoting his life to becoming a jaeger pilot, there was no time to figure out how to talk about his feelings, good or bad. Raleigh's better at it. Chuck overhears him and Mako sometimes, talking to each other about Raleigh's own nightmares; the phantom pain of his brother being ripped away. Chuck doesn't get how he does it. When he bothers to talk, it has to be dragged out of him.

Somehow, he remembers the feeling of Stacker dying. Maybe it's a hallucination. He'd been ejected in the escape pod when Striker had finally blown after all, but Raleigh tells him that Ghost Drifts feel just as powerful as a proper Drift. At the end of the day, he supposes it doesn't matter. It feels real and it keeps him up at night. That's all that really matters.

 

It's not always sparring either. Sometimes it's fucking. It wasn't at first, Chuck's body too broken and scarred to handle much of anything. But fucking is like sparring. It wears him out, makes his brain turn off for a while and he can let himself be held. It's easier to be taken care of when you're tired. The words come out easier then too. Words about the guilt that he didn't go down like Stacker, that he didn't go down like a true pilot.

And after that comes something harder. Talking about the past is hard sure, traumatic, blah, blah, all that shit, but the thing is, Chuck never really planned on a future. Trying to talk about that...Chuck doesn't even know where to begin.

"I get that," Raleigh says. "After Yancy...I didn't think I'd do anything, didn't see the point."

Chuck stares at the dark ceiling and squeezes Raleigh's hand. His chest feels tight, a nervousness that even a good lay can't get rid of. "You know...I like you a lot, and Mako, but it's not enough to live for or something like that. I can't....I don't think I'd ever be able to live for another person."

"You'll find something," Raleigh says. "For me...it was Mako and you, but I've always been a guy to find my meaning in other people. But...you don't seem like that type of person at all."

Chuck sighs and rolls into Raleigh's side, tucking his face into his neck. "I don't know what type of guy I am. Never really got a chance to figure out who I was."

"You ever think of talking to Herc?" Raleigh asks, his hand rubbing up and down Chuck's back.

There isn't much feeling there, but Chuck enjoys the intimacy of it. He reaches over and pinches Raleigh's hip. "You know I haven't."

He doesn't know how. Communicating with Herc....it'd always happened in the Drift and without it...it was hard to find a reason to keep in touch. Sometimes, Chuck felt like a bad son, but it wasn't like Herc had reached out to him either.

"I just want to be my own person," Chuck says, voice soft. "I don't want him putting ideas in my head about who or what I should be, I guess."

"You'll get there Chuck." Raleigh kisses his forehead. "You'll get there."

Chuck closes his eyes. He doesn't have much faith in himself. He never has, and he supposes that was what made it so easy to climb into a jaeger because it wasn't like the world was going to lose anything if it lost him. But he was still here now. So he'd have to do something, eventually.

And maybe Raleigh was right. Raleigh had been right in everything so far after all, even if it made Chuck a little bitter. Maybe he'd have to talk to Herc. Maybe he had to heal that wound before anything else.


End file.
